Lost for Words: Constructing Human-Nature Relations through Color in Nausiciaä of the Valley of the Wind
Abstract
Because of the failure of both academic and literary language in providing a comprehensible account of the contemporary, environmental crises of the Anthropocene, this paper explores alternative, non-linguistic storytell- ing methods characteristic of ani- mation for bringing awareness and understanding of ecological issues to a broader public. It will do so by focusing on Hayao Miyazaki’s film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), in order to investigate how color, as a visual narrative tool, can provide a powerful medium for portraying the complexity of transcorporeal entanglements, and consequently problematizing the human/non-human binary.
Biography
Anne van Buuren is a second-year student in the RMA Comparative Literary Studies at Utrecht University, where she also completed her BA in English Language and Culture. Her research interests are ecocriticism, memory studies and gender studies, specifically in modern and contemporary literature.